thirty-two

and when full daylight came at last, they all got to their feet and stretched their poor cramped bodies,and then the centipede, who always seemed to see things first, shouted, ‘look! there’s land below!’

‘he’s right!’ they cried, running to the edge of the peach and peering over. ‘hooray! hooray!’

‘it looks like streets and houses!’

‘but how enormous it all is!’

a vast city, glistening in the early morning sunshine, lay spread out three thousand feet below them.

at that height, the cars were like little beetles crawling along the streets, and people walking on thepavements looked no larger than tiny grains of soot.

‘but what tremendous tall buildings!’ exclaimed the ladybird. ‘i‘ve never seen anything like thembefore in england. which town do you think it is?’

‘this couldn’t possibly be england,’ said the old-green-grasshopper.

‘then where is it?’ asked miss spider.

‘you know what those buildings are?’ shouted james, jumping up and down with excitement. ‘thoseare skyscrapers! so this must be america! and that, my friends, means that we have crossed theatlantic ocean overnight!’

‘you don’t mean it!’ they cried.

‘it’s not possible!’

‘it’s incredible! it’s unbelievable!’

‘oh, i‘ve always dreamed of going to america!’ cried the centipede. ‘i had a friend once who – ’

‘be quiet!’ said the earthworm. ‘who cares about your friend? the thing we‘ve got to think aboutnow is how on earth are we going to get down to earth?’

‘ask james,’ said the ladybird.

‘i don’t think that should be so very difficult,’ james told them. ‘all we’ll have to do is to cut loose afew seagulls. not too many, mind you, but just enough so that the others can’t quite keep us up in theair. then down we shall go, slowly and gently, until we reach the ground. centipede will bite throughthe strings for us one at a time.’

三十二

终于，天光大亮了。于是，他们都站了起来，伸展一下自己那可怜的、抽了筋的身躯。

接着，似乎总是第一个看见东西的蜈蚣，喊叫道：“瞧啊！下边儿是陆地啦！”

“他说得没有错儿！”他们叫喊着，冲到大桃边沿，朝外瞧起来，“好啊！好啊！”

“看起来像是街道和房子！”

“可又都是多么大呀！”

晨曦之中，一座闪闪发光的庞大城市，伸展在他们下边三千英尺的地方。从那个高度望去，甲壳虫似的汽车，在沿着街道爬行，人行道上的人们，看上去还不如一粒灰尘大。

“可是，那些楼房多么高大呀！”瓢虫欢喜雀跃地说，“这在英国，我还从来没有见过哪！

你看是哪座城市？”

“这不可能是英国。”绿色老蚱蜢说。

“那么，是哪儿呢？”蜘蛛小姐问。

“你知道那些楼房是什么吧？”詹姆斯喊道，他兴奋地跳过来跳过去，“是摩天大楼！所以说，这里肯定是美国！这就是说，朋友们，咱们一夜就跨过了大西洋！”

“你是说着玩的吧？”他们喊叫起来。

“这不可能！”

“这不可思议！难以叫人相信哪！”

“哦，我可是一直向往着到美国来呀！”蜈蚣大喊道，“我有个朋友，一次他……”

“安静一点！”蚯蚓说，“有谁管你朋友不朋友的？现在，需要考虑的是，咱们究竟怎样降到地上去？”

“问问詹姆斯吧。”瓢虫说。

“我看，这并不太难。”詹姆斯对他们说，“咱们所要做的，只是割断几条丝绳，放走几只海鸥就得。可别放多了，你们要小心。只要剩下来的海鸥不能叫咱们飘在空中就行了。那时，咱们就会往下降，慢慢地、轻轻地往下降，直到着陆。蜈蚣，你去咬断丝绳，一次只咬断一根。”